2011

How to Make Your Book a Best Seller...

Okay, it's a deceptive blog title. I have no idea how to make my book a best seller, and even if I had the time to try, I'm not sure I'd be willing to devote the energy. But I do know that two major factors in whether or not books continue to sell are 1) word of mouth (so if ...

All I Want for Christmas Is Some Sleep...

I used to think that infancy was the only time when sleep was a problem for parents. I was ready for a few months of getting up every few hours. I wasn't ready for years on end of interrupted slumber because someone has a cold or needs water or needs help going potty or is just ...

Following God Every Day

One of the wonders of the Christmas season is the opportunity to teach our kids the Christmas story. We've used a sticker-based Advent calendar this December, in which readings from the Bible correspond to a little poem and a sticker. Penny remembers the details from years past, ...

Designer Babies, Christmas, and A Good and Perfect Gift

Philip Ney has an essay discussing A Good and Perfect Gift in the current issue of Comment Magazine: "Whoever Welcomes This Child." (It's an essay about two books, including Amy Laura Hall's Conceiving Parenthood, and the whole piece is worth reading, but just so you know the ...

Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, for Jesus Is Born

For a few years now, I've talked about "American Christmas" and "Christian Christmas," and I've decided that as a family we observe both. For American Christmas we sing songs about Santa and decorate the living room. For Christian Christmas we have a Birthday Party for Jesus ...

Remembering St. Nick

Penny has had an aversion to, and fascination with, Santa Claus for years now. Four years, to be precise. It began with shyness, almost as if she were a baby again, cuddling against my chest. Then screams of terror. Last year, with her dad in the Santa suit, sobs. (I tried to ...

A Good (if not exactly perfect?) Christmas Gift

My sister-in-law and I tried to make Christmas a little simpler this year. At first, we thought we'd give family presents, but then we realized that it's awfully hard to buy gifts that make everyone from a 10-month old to a 5-year old happy. So we settle on books. They're relatively ...

Too Many Big Rocks

Years ago, I watched a camp counselor illustrate a point. He held an empty jar, and first he filled it with pebbles. Then he tried to add three big rocks. They didn't fit. He poured out the pebbles. The three big rocks fit now, and the pebbles filled in the space around them. ...

Advent Reflections

Maybe next year I will remember ahead of time to recommend the book I use every Advent: God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas. It's a beautiful set of daily readings from Scripture combined with color prints of paintings from throughout the ages that correspond ...

A Good and Perfect Gift, Revisited

I have a new essay in the December issue of Christianity Today (and if you're a subscriber, be sure to read it in the magazine because it includes two adorable photos of Penny that don't appear online!) "My Perfect Child." In my dad's words, the article is a very abbreviated ...

They're Growing Up

I wanted to write a lyrical essay about our week in New Orleans for Thanksgiving. Something about the humidity and the colors on the houses and the Spanish moss and the streetcars. Something about laughter and good food and going to the zoo and family. Something about why travel ...

Penny and me on Time.com

Bonnie Rochman has a new article at Time.com called "Are Kids With Down Syndrome on the Road to Extinction?" which features a picture of Penny and me and (on the second page) a few comments from a conversation we had a few weeks back. Although the new prenatal tests for Down ...

Concluding the Abortion Debate--Did You Change Your Mind?

A few final words, in the wake of the essays and discussion surrounding Christians who are pro-life and pro-choice, respectively. First of all, a big thank you to Karen and Ellen for the time and effort you both put into writing these pieces, engaging comments, and then following ...

Part Two: Questions for Ellen Painter Dollar on Being Pro-Choice

What restrictions would you put on reproductive choice?

Fervent pro-choice advocates face a dilemma as reproductive technologies such as prenatal diagnosis, IVF, PGD, and surrogacy become more sophisticated and ubiquitous. The ability of parents to select the gender of their ...

Questions for Ellen Painter Dollar on Being Pro-Choice Part One

We have three more posts related to abortion–Ellen Painter Dollar's answers to my questions, which will appear here this morning and this afternoon (and, in longer form, on Ellen's blog Choices That Matter). And then tomorrow morning I will post a summary of what I've learned ...

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